NAB says the pilot showed that using blockchain technology for international transactions can reduce transaction times to minutes rather than days.
According to a March 14th statement by National Australia Bank (NAB), one of Australia’s big four banks, the institution has successfully executed a cross-border stablecoin transaction. The transaction used an internal stablecoin minted on the ERC-20 standard.
NAB conducted the transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. It involved deploying stablecoin smart contracts for seven leading global fiat currencies, such as United States, New Zealand, Australian, and Singapore dollars, British pounds, Japanese yen, and euros.
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To execute the pilot, the bank worked with Blockfold, a consultancy service specializing in tokenization, and Fireblocks, an enterprise-grade digital assets platform. The two firms assisted the bank in topics like smart contracts, token minting and burning, and managing digital asset custody.
The bank said the transaction highlighted the potential of blockchain technology to reduce cross-border transaction time from days to minutes. According to Drew Bradford, NAB’s markets executive general:
Bringing multi-currency stablecoins to market demonstrates NAB’s focus on simplifying international banking protocols to increase speed and transparency while lowering costs and reducing complexity for customers.
The successful transaction makes NAB the world’s first major financial firm to complete a stablecoin transaction on a public blockchain.
Initially, only a select list of institutional and corporate clients will have access to the stablecoin. According to the bank, Australian Stablecoin (AUDN) is backed 1:1 by the Australian dollar and managed as one of its liabilities. Its issuance is in line with its goals in the digital assets space.
The news about National Australia Bank’s plans to roll out an Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin broke in January. At that time, the bank claimed it was set to launch the stablecoin in mid-2023.
